The multi-millionaire boss of healthcare fund nib has called for the federal government to scrap Medicare and replace it with compulsory private health insurance.
Mark Fitzgibbon, whose father and brother were both federal Labor MPs, wants Australia to instead embrace an American-style healthcare system.
The $3.6million-a-year managing director of nib, a Newcastle-based health fund, has called for the Australian government to scrap the existing Medicare system, introduced by Bob Hawke’s Labor government in 1984.
‘Universal healthcare means government must subsidise everyone irrespective of their income or means,’ he said in a Tuesday opinion piece for The Australian Financial Review.
Managing director of health fund nib Mark Fitzgibbon (second left with daughters Laura and Madeline) wants Medicare scrapped. He’s also the brother and son of federal Labor MPs (his late father Eric Fitzgibbon, is pictured far right)
Instead of everyone having universal access to subsidised medicine and doctor visits, Mr Fitzgibbon wants Australians to instead be required to take out private health insurance.
‘It’s hardly a radical proposition when you consider Medicare is itself a compulsory “social insurance” system,’ he said.
‘Compulsion overcomes the problem of good, typically younger people not participating in insurance.
‘That’s necessary in order to lower average claims costs and thereby premiums within the entire insurance pool.’
Mark Fitzgibbon’s brother Joel Fitzgibbon is a federal Labor frontbencher while their late father Eric previously held the seat of Hunter, north of Sydney, as a Hawke government MP.
Despite coming from a Labor family, Mark Fitzgibbon is calling for the scrapping of Medicare and a new compulsory private health insurance system whereby the rich would pay higher premiums as lower-income people were subsidised by the taxpayers to get more affordable coverage.
Instead of everyone having universal access to subsidised medicine and doctor visits, Mr Fitzgibbon wants Australians to instead be required to take out private health insurance (pictured is a stock image of an elderly woman in need of medical care)
‘How do we continue to pay for a “universal” healthcare system with an ageing population, burgeoning spending and ever-increasing dependency ratio of older retired Australians to younger taxpayers?,’ he said.
While his column didn’t mention the United States, the system he proposes is similar to the American Affordable Care Act, colloquially known as ‘Obamacare’.
Former Democrat president Barack Obama in 2010 introduced an ‘individual mandate’ for private health insurance and a system where taxpayers subsidised health funds.
The American health system has a Medicare system, but this only provides benefits to the elderly while Medicaid gives means-tested benefits to the poor.
In Australia, a Medicare levy surcharge is levied on those who delay getting private health insurance every year after they turn 30.
Taxpayers with private health insurance are also given generous rebates.
Mark Fitzgibbon’s brother Joel Fitzgibbon (right) is a federal Labor frontbencher while their late father Eric (left) previously held the seat of Hunter, north of Sydney, as a Hawke government MP
Mark Fitzgibbon’s call for Medicare to be scrapped comes a week after the Grattan Institute think tank criticised successive Australian governments for failing to define the role of private health insurers since Medicare debuted in 1984.
‘The upshot is we have a muddled health care system that is riddled with inconsistencies and perverse incentives,’ the paper by Stephen Duckett and Kristina Nemet said.
The Grattan Institute pointed out the private health insurance rebate cost taxpayers $6billion every year while another $3billion of public money went towards subdising private hospital care.
Mark Fitzgibbon pointed out that when Medicare’s short-lived predecessor Medibank was introduced in 1974, there were 10 working-age people for every retiree compared with five now.
With fewer taxpayers to supporting an ageing population, he argued private health insurers should be allowed to ‘cover the full spectrum of medical costs’ including out-of-hospital costs.
Mr Fitzgibbon also advocated allowing people to completely opt out of Medicare, in the short term, provided they had full private insurance coverage.
His son Lachlan, 25, plays rugby league for the Newcastle Knights.